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Paperback Row

THE LAST HERO: A Life of Henry Aaron, by Howard Bryant (Anchor, $16.95.) Henry Aaron was his era’s greatest hitter; when he retired, in 1976, after a 23-year career, only Ty Cobb had more hits or scored more runs, and no one had more home runs. Bryant’s book is a rigorously researched and illuminating portrait of Aaron — he was the last Hall of Famer to play in the Negro Leagues — and his dogged pursuit of Babe Ruth’s career home run record.

INNOCENT, by Scott Turow (Grand Central, $14.99.) Twenty-four years ago, Rusty Sabich, the hero of Turow’s legal thriller “Presumed Innocent,” went on trial for the twisted murder of his mistress and colleague. In this cunning sequel Sabich, now a judge, is again accused of murder, this time his wife’s.

LIFE, by Keith Richards with James Fox (Back Bay/Little, Brown, $16.99.) The heart and soul of the Rolling Stones, Richards holds nothing back in this rollicking memoir: there’s sex, drugs and rock, but also reflections on the creative process and the consequences of fame. “The most impressive part of ‘Life’ is the wealth of knowledge Keith shares,” Liz Phair wrote here, “whether he’s telling you how to layer an acoustic guitar until it sounds electric . . . or how to win a knife fight.”

THE PASSAGE, by Justin Cronin (Ballantine, $16.) Cronin’s sprawling dystopian novel, the first volume of a planned trilogy, imagines a military-engineered race of vampires unleashed on the world.

THE GREAT OOM:The Mysterious Origins of America’s First Yogi, by Robert Love. (Penguin, $17.) Known as “the Omnipotent Oom,” Pierre Bernard (formerly Perry Baker, from Iowa) popularized yoga in the United States. This is the story of how he became one of the Jazz Age’s sensational impresarios, establishing a cult of personality that attracted heiresses, Broadway actors and Wall Street barons. In THE SUBTLE BODY: The Story of Yoga in America(Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $17), Stefanie Syman examines how a centuries-old spiritual discipline, associated with Buddhism and Hinduism, evolved into a practice millions of Americans place at the center of their lives.

ROOM, by Emma Donoghue (Back Bay/Little, Brown, $14.99.) The 5-year-old narrator of Donoghue’s novel — one of the Book Review’s 10 Best Books of 2010 — seems happy in his tiny universe, an 11-by-11-foot room where he lives with his mother. Gradually, the terrifying reality filters through: their room is a prison, with a villain holding the key. “This is a truly memorable novel,” our reviewer, Aimee Bender, wrote, “one that can be read through myriad lenses — psychological, sociological, political.

ROLE MODELS, by John Waters (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $15.) In his latest exercise in autobiography, the film director and all-around anti-tastemaker pays tribute to various men and women — Tennessee Williams, Little Richard — who in one way or another helped him become the person he is.

AS HUSBANDS GO, by Susan Isaacs (Scribner, $15.) In Isaacs’s biting satire, a Park Avenue plastic surgeon turns up dead in a prostitute’s apartment, and it falls to his wife to unravel the mystery and prove that their wonderful life was no lie.